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What the Rise of a New Gang Means for Juarez Written by Patrick Corcoran, InSightSunday, February 5, 2012

The emergence of an aggressive new gang in Juarez has sparked a wave of attacks on local police, demonstrating just how difficult it is to engineer a lasting security improvement in Mexico's most violent city.

The New Juarez Cartel, or NCJ for its initials in Spanish, earned headlines last week for a series of messages promising to kill local officers unless police chief Julian Leyzaola resigned, and the group’s possible links to the killings of at least eight officers this year. In response to the threats, Mayor Hector Murguia announced that local police will be allowed to carry their weapons even when off duty, and have been encouraged to start living out of hotels.

While the gang doesn’t have a long track record of operating in Juarez, this is not the first appearance of the NCJ. Gustavo Rosa, the human rights ombudsman in the state of Chihuahua (where Juarez is located), first mentioned the surge of a new group last February, which authorities later said was in fact the NCJ. Messages attributed to the group subsequently began to pop up last September, at which point the Federal Police announced the existence of the new group.

Much of the NCJ’s correspondence has focused on the supposed bias of Mexican agencies toward the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin Guzman, alias “El Chapo.” A video posted to the internet in October shows a handful of armed, ski-masked NCJ members interrogating a local prison guard about his colleagues’ links to Guzman’s organization. The guard, who said that some of his colleagues are ex-soldiers imported from other regions of the country who also operate as hitmen, was later found murdered.

Authorities have said that the NCJ is little more than the recomposition of the diminished Juarez Cartel and its network of allied gangs, principally La Linea and Los Aztecas. Both groups originally had security and assassin duties for the Juarez Cartel, which has faded from view along with its longtime leader, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. La Linea's core is allegedly composed of ex-police; Los Aztecas are a Mexican-American gang with roots in the US prison system.

One recent report from el Diario de Juarez quotes authorities identifying the group’s boss as Juan Morales Gonzalez, an alleged member of the Los Aztecas, which also has a presence in El Paso. The 51-year-old Morales subsequently denied the report in an interview, saying he has no idea how his name became implicated and that he’s never been involved in gangs. Previous reports linked the NCJ to Cesar Carrillo Leyva, a relative of Carrillo Fuentes, the longtime leader of the Juarez Cartel.

As InSight has reported, the strength of this collection of organizations has declined markedly in recent months, leading to increased influence in Juarez for Guzman. The decline of La Linea has also been a fundamental factor in the improvement of security in Juarez, where the number of murders linked to organized crime declined by roughly 50 percent in 2011 from the previous year.

Such a reorganization of fading older groups into new networks is common in Mexico, and has often led to the further spread of violence. After the death and arrests of all but one of its foremost leaders, the formerly vaunted Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), for instance, disintegrated into the South Pacific Cartel, the Mano con Ojos, and various other largely regional gangs sprinkled around the country. While these groups have nowhere near the influence that the original group did, they have sparked fighting in Mexico State, Guerrero, Morelos, and other Mexican states.

In other cases, the impact of this reorganization is not so severe. In Michoacan, for example, the rebranding of the Familia Michoacana as the Caballeros Templarios has sparked a comparatively mild increase in violence. Overall, however, the constant process of destruction and regeneration has been a force for greater levels of bloodshed spread across a larger expanse of the nation.

The impact in Juarez depends a great deal on whether the NCJ can reconstitute the a force capable of standing up to Guzman’s troops for any length of time. The disappearance of Vicente Carrillo as a genuine rival suggests that the decline of the local groups’ has much to do with diminished leadership. Under a new banner and led by a new cohort, it’s not implausible that the locals would be able to better defend their city from Guzman’s imported gunmen.

Thus far, however, the NCJ doesn’t seem a credible threat to reopen a fight for control of Juarez. While the appearance of a new group and the attacks on police may be alarming, the number of reported killings in January, roughly 120 around the city, does not represent a sharp increase from the pattern over the past several months.

Federal police arrested a major methamphetamine producer for the Sinaloa Cartel in northwest Mexico, in another blow to Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's criminal organization.

Jaime Herrera Herrera, alias “El Viejito”, had been working for the cartel since 2002, producing the drug in two ranches outside the city of Cuiliacan, reports El Informador. He was arrested in the US in the 1990s and later released on bail, after which he began distributing methamphetamine in Los Angeles, California and eventually producing the drug in Mexico.

Another man was arrested with Herrera, and police found weapons, 202 kilograms of methamphetamine, and other drugs.

InSight Crime Analysis

The arrest of one of the cartel’s major methamphetamine producers is a reminder of the increasing importance of the drug to its operations. With the decline of the Familia Michoacana, the Sinaloa Cartel is thought to have become Mexico’s biggest meth producer.

There have been at least five major arrests of Sinaloa Cartel members since November, as El Informador notes, and Herrera’s capture could represent a serious blow for the group. This has caused speculation that the government is increasing pressure on the organization, and that fugitive boss Joaquin Guzman, alias "El Chapo," could be captured soon.

Mexico Arrests Four in Sex Trafficking Ring Written by Geoffrey Ramsey, InSightThursday, February 16, 2012

Officials have dismantled a sex trafficking ring in central Mexico which reportedly smuggled teenage girls to the US, where they were forced to work as prostitutes.

Yesterday, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) publicized the arrest of four individuals who stand accused of running a sex trafficking venture for the past decade. According to PGR deputy Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas, the network was run by members of a family based in the central, poverty-stricken state of Tlaxcala, where they lured girls aged 15 to 18 under false romantic pretenses and eventually smuggled them into the US. Once there, the girls were coerced into working as prostitutes in New York.

Cuitlahuac told local press that the investigation into the case began in January 2011, in response to concerns raised by the US Embassy in Mexico. While the full extent of the network is unknown, it is believed that at least seven other members are based in the US.

InSight Crime Analysis

The arrests are an encouraging sign of Mexico taking action against the illegal sex trade, where the number of human trafficking investigations, prosecutions, and convinctions remain low. A 2011 report by Mexico City's Human Rights Commission (CDHDF) estimated that 10,000 women were victims of human trafficking in the capital city alone, but documented only 40 official investigations into the crime, with a mere three convictions there in 2010.

Last summer President Felipe Calderon approved a set of laws aimed at making it easier to prosecute human trafficking, and also urged congress to pass a nationwide law that would impose stricter penalties for the crime. As congresswoman Rosi Orozco told the Washington Post in July, “If narcotics traffickers are caught they go to high-security prisons, but with the trafficking of women, they have found absolute impunity.” The law was recently approved by two legislative committees, and is expected to come to a vote sometime this year.

'Zetas' Youth Gangs on the Rise in Nuevo Leon, Mexico Written by Christopher Looft, InSight.comMonday, February 20, 2012

The Mexican Navy said youth gang activity has risen by between 200 and 500 percent in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, much of it consisting of small groups adopting the Zetas franchise name.

An Excelsior report says that street gangs have been multiplying in Nuevo Leon since 2009, according to an unnamed source in the Mexican Navy. The Navy then defines "street gangs" as small groups who engage in common crime, like carjackings, "express" kidnappings, and theft. The members are between 13 and 26 years old.

The gangs, not fully intergrated into the Zetas or other cartels, claim affiliation in order to intimidate their victims. These street gangs sometimes pay the larger organizations for permission to operate under the more famous franchise name.

InSight Crime Analysis

The Navy's recognition of the issue follows a study by Southern Pulse predicting that by the end of 2014 street gangs would supplant cartels as the top cause of violence in Mexico. The prediction follows a 2010 report by the organized crime division of the Attorney General's Office, which found that as many as 5,000 youth criminal gangs are contracted out to the country's major drug cartels. The report notes that in Juarez alone there may be as many 1,500 local gangs.

The rise in street gangs is bad news for Nuevo Leon, one of Mexico's most troubled states, with over 2,003 homicides registered in 2011. And if street gangs are expanding, the effectiveness of local law enforcement is not. As of October 2011, the state had sacked 3,200 policemen for "loss of trust."

Thirty members of a feared Mexican drug cartel were on the loose on Tuesday after dozens of rival gang members were killed in a prison massacre apparently organised with the aid of authorities.

The massacre early on Sunday, in which 44 inmates were stabbed or bludgeoned to death, was apparently a grisly smokescreen planned to aid the escape, according to officials, who said nine wardens had confessed to taking part in the plot.

The escaped prisoners were all from the Zetas drug gang, while those killed were all from the rival Gulf cartel. The two crime syndicates have been locked in a bloody turf battle since their alliance broke down in 2010.

The massacre on Sunday in the Apodaca prison, an overcrowded facility 30 kilometres north of Monterrey, the state capital of Nuevo Leon, was among the deadliest incidents in years in Mexico's notoriously violent prisons.

“Nine of the 18 (detained) guards said they were actively involved in the escape,” state security spokesman Jorge Domene said late Monday, calling it a “betrayal of public officials who allied themselves with the criminals.”

He said the other nine guards and three senior prison officials were still being questioned.

The escape took place between 1.00am and 1.30am (07.00-07.30 GMT) on Sunday, followed by the attack on the inmates, which lasted around an hour and a half, until prison officials called for reinforcements, Domene said.

Rodrigo Medina, governor of Nuevo Leon, had earlier released names and pictures of the fugitives, and posted rewards of up to 10 million pesos ($775 000) for information leading to their capture.

Among them was Oscar Manuel Bernal, nicknamed “The Spider,” who was head of the Zetas in the industrial city of Monterrey when he was detained in October 2010, accused of ordering the killing of a local police chief.

The riot came just days after a fire in a jail in Honduras left 359 dead, highlighting severe overcrowding in Latin American prisons.

Rampant drug trafficking, score-settling between gang members and official corruption have turned prisons into human tinder boxes.

The prison population in Mexico and Central America has swollen in line with the region's increasingly important role in cocaine trafficking, meaning outdated facilities are straining at the seams.

Distraught families gathered outside the Apodaca prison awaiting news of loved ones in a desperate scene, with some women fainting.

Mexican prisons have often been the scene of deadly violence.

In early January, 31 inmates were killed and 13 wounded in a brawl in the Altamira prison in the northern state of Tamaulipas. On October 15, 20 people were killed in another Tamaulipas prison.

Two days earlier, seven inmates were killed and 12 wounded in a fight at Nuevo Leon's Cadereyta prison.

The northern regions along the US border have seen an upsurge in violence in recent years as rival cartels have battled over lucrative smuggling routes.

About 50 000 people are believed to have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since the launching of a military crackdown on the gangs in 2006.

In Honduras, the toll of Tuesday's blaze at the overcrowded Comayagua prison, thought to be the world's worst-ever prison fire, rose by one to 359 dead, after an inmate succumbed to severe burns.

Only 38 bodies have so far been identified in the morgue in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, and just 21 have been returned to their families for burial.

Expert teams from the United States, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru are helping the Honduran authorities with their investigations into the fire, the cause of which remains unclear. - AFP

Mexico Gang Turns to Women to Hold Key City Written by Patrick Corcoran, InSightSunday, March 4, 2012

In the midst of a years-long fight against the Zetas for control of prized sections of borderland territory, the Gulf Cartel is increasingly relying on a previously untapped resource: women.

As Excelsior reported last week;

“The army has evidence that women have begun to occupy important positions inside the Gulf Cartel; in [Reynosa] they have begun to obtain information that not only is the number of women who are dedicated to assassinations rising, but they have also gone from managing safe houses and administering funds to carrying out intricate operations for the purchase and smuggling of drugs and undocumented immigrants ...The Gulf Cartel has bet on women to come and fortify an organization that has been worn down by casualties suffered in confrontations with the Zetas.”

Despite being one of the most powerful groups in Mexico over the past two decades, more than two years of warfare with the Zetas, their one-time enforcer arm, along with the arrest of a number of leading figures, have rendered the group a shell of its former self. As InSight Crime reported last month, of the men who led the group at its height in the early 2000s, the only remaining figure is Eduardo Costilla, alias “El Coss”. Yet Reynosa, a Tamaulipas town of some 600,000 people across of the border from McAllen, Texas, remains a Gulf Cartel stronghold in the group’s dwindling swatch of territory in northeastern Mexico.

While often overlooked, women playing a role in organized crime groups is nothing new in Mexico. As InSight Crime has noted, the number of women working in the drug trade is estimated to have grown by 400 percent between 2007 and 2010. This includes a number of now-notorious figures, principal among them Sandra Avila, who earned notoriety as the "Queen of the Pacific" following her arrest in 2007 accused of drug trafficking. Many of the initial charges were subsequently dismissed, though she remains in jail on money laundering charges, and an extradition request from the US is pending.

The idea of an all-powerful female criminal boss has spilled out into Mexican popular culture as well. "La Reina del Sur," a novel about a Sinaloa women forced to flee her homeland, who subsequently sets herself up as a major trafficker in southern Spain, is among the most popular recent pieces of crime lit, and was spun off into a telenovela with longtime star Kate del Castillo. Scores of "narcocorridos" (drug ballads) have been written about leading females in the drug trade, and a handful of non-fiction accounts of their exploits have appeared on the shelves of Mexican book stores.

In most cases the role of women is portrayed as secondary, and their involvement comes across as isolated cases of happenstance -- Avila, for instance, married her way into the drug trade -- rather than as part of a broader strategy. In Reynosa, however, the women are not mere add-ons, but, according to Excelsior, central figures.

Insofar as the use of women is a shift forced upon the Gulf Cartel by difficult circumstances, it demonstrates the group’s weakening. If Gulf leaders have been forced to turn to women, who they consider less effective, because they could not maintain their operation otherwise, this is an indication of a group that may be in its last days.

Such a lack of access to manpower could well have been provoked by the Zetas' success in identifying Gulf reinforcements sent from elsewhere in the country; their efforts to wipe out these fighters have been blamed from the mass disappearance of bus passengers in Tamaulipas in recent years.

An alternative interpretation, however, is that the Mexican gangs’ failure to integrate women into their organizations represents a needless and limiting oversight. Just as legitimate multinational corporations have benefited from the influx of women into their boardrooms, so too could smuggling organizations increase their efficiency by no longer ignoring half the population.

How Arrest of Gang Leader Sparked Chaos in Guadalajara Written by Patrick Corcoran, InSight.comTuesday, March 13, 2012

The capture of the leader of an emerging gang in Guadalajara sparked days of chaos, suggesting the CJNG still has the strength to strike back, but the arrest could mark a changeover of criminal power in Mexico's second largest city.

Following a shootout on Friday, Mexican Army troops arrested Erick "El 85" Valencia Salazar, the alleged leader of the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation (CJNG), in Zapopan, a wealthy suburb of Guadalajara. Two other men, one of whom the army identified as Valencia’s chief lieutenant, were also detained in the operation. Authorities seized dozens of firearms, including assault rifles and grenade launchers, and 69,000 rounds of ammunition.

In response to the arrest, CJNG members apparently launched a campaign of chaos in Jalisco. According to state officials, 25 vehicles were set on fire and used to block roadways in the hours after the Friday afternoon capture. At least three people were reportedly murdered, though it is not clear how many of those killings were related to Valencia’s arrest.

The CJNG has emerged over the past couple of years as the heir to the network run by Ignacio Coronel, a Sinaloa Cartel capo killed in a shootout with government troops in July 2010. The group operates principally in Pacific coast states like Colima, Michoacan, and Jalisco, but it has also popped up in Veracruz, with a CJNG cell calling itself the Mata Zetas (Zeta Killers).

The group’s operations have coincided with some of the most significant accelerations of violence in recent years. Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located, saw murders spike to 1,222 last year, according to Mexican government statistics, up from 888 in 2010 and 570 in 2009. In Veracruz state, the group was blamed for dumping the bodies of scores of murdered Zetas in Boca del Rio and Veracruz city, and was largely responsible for a massive increase in murders linked to organized crime in those two cities. According to analyst Eduardo Guerrero, the number of such killings leaped from nine in 2010 to 185 in 2011 in Veracruz, and from two to 129 in Boca del Rio.

Because of its efforts to extinguish the Zetas, including the release of a threatening video last year with a pseudo-military tinge, the gang has also been interpreted as a symptom of rising paramilitarism. However, the government has been quick to assert that Valencia’s group is a drug trafficking network, and nothing more.

The CGNJ has often been described as a local branch of the Sinaloa Cartel, though it appears to operate with a significant amount of autonomy. While the gang is best known for its fights with the Zetas, it has long battled another local gang, the Resistencia, for supremacy in Jalisco and the surrounding region. Other gangs, such as the Milenio Cartel and the Familia Michoacana, have also been reported as operating in Jalisco, often in tandem with the principal local gangs.

As noted by InSight Crime earlier this year, the CJNG’s rapid rise to prominence and the chaotic web of alliances in Jalisco reflects a broader trend in Mexico. Whereas for most of the nation’s recent history a small number of hegemonic groups have between them controlled organized crime in the region, the last five years have seen the rise of a welter of smaller regional gangs. These groups gain power and lose it with greater frequency than the larger networks, lending Mexico’s criminal landscape a greater degree of instability and a more intense cycle of creative destruction, which is itself a major factor in the recent spike in violence.

It’s not clear whether Valencia’s arrest will ultimately spell the end of the group, but the chaos that erupted in response to his detention suggests that this is an organization whose power does not rest on a single leader alone. However, arrests of high-profile members pose a particular threat to newer, less established groups with a smaller command structure; consistent government pressure has caused gangs like the South Pacific Cartel and the Mano con Ojos to all but disappear in a matter of months. Furthermore, given the level of competition in the regions where the CJNG operates, even a slight weakening will open the door for the group’s adversaries.

The fierce reaction also demonstrates the precarious line the government must walk between arresting capos on one side, and protecting public security on the other. While Mexican gangs have not tended to carry out terrorist-style attacks on civilians in response to kingpins’ arrests, it has become more common to use blockades to provoke chaos after blows by the security forces, and attacks on government officials often spike as well. The Familia Michoacana, for instance, responded similarly following the December 2010 death of its leader, Nazario Moreno. If this practice continues to expand, the nuisance and outright danger that a major arrests poses to the general population will grow along with it.

This risk of greater violence only rises in the weeks and months that follow a major arrest. As many analysts, including InSight Crime, have pointed out, the arrests or killings of big capos often cause a spike in bloodshed, as erstwhile lieutenants and adversaries battle over his empire. The news that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was recently almost nabbed in Los Cabos by the Federal Police has fueled speculation that his arrest is imminent, and sparked worries that this could gravely complicate Mexico’s attempts to consolidate recent security improvements.

That’s not to suggest that the government errs by targeting capos. Ultimately, a safer, more modern Mexico is impossible while figures like Guzman are on the loose. But the transition to a nation without Guzmans, where public security is stable enough that the arrest of a capo barely registers among the population at large, will be slow and painful.

Jalisco Cartel Promises Mexico Govt it will Take Down Rival Gang Written by Patrick Corcoran, InSight, Friday, March 23, 2012

The Jalisco Cartel - New Generation has released a video asking the government not to hinder their efforts to drive a rival drug gang out of south Mexico, in order to bring "peace" to local people.

The video, featured on Blog del Narco, features purported members of the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation (CJNG) promising to attack the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) in the states of Guerrero and Michoacan.

The video’s speaker proclaims:

All you Caballeros Templarios are a bunch of dirty bandits along with your leaders, the people deserve peace and we, the warriors of the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation have come to give it to them, and do away with these degenerates that have invaded the tranquility of the people of Guerrero and Michoacan. Because we dedicate ourselves to trafficking drugs, not to robbery or kidnapping like those dirtbags from the Caballeros Templarios.

The speaker goes on to promise the government that the group will take down the various Caballero leaders, and asks state agencies to allow them to go about their work unhindered. He assures viewers that the CJNG has no problem with the government, and that its only enemies are rival gangs (watch video below).

The video is noteworthy for a number of reasons. One is that it demonstrates that the CJNG is not on the verge of disappearing, despite the arrest of big shot Erick Valencia Salazar earlier this month in Guadalajara. Indeed, it evidently feels strong enough to take the fight to two long-simmering states where the Caballeros (and their criminal progenitors, the Familia Michoacana) are deeply entrenched.

With this latest gambit, the CJNG is continuing past tactics. The declaration of their move into a foreign territory calls to mind last year’s videotaped announcement that they would take Veracruz from the Zetas. The subsequent incursion put Veracruz among the states with the biggest rises in violence in 2011, with massacres carried out in Boca del Rio and Veracruz city. In both videos, the CJNG has used paramilitary-style language, promising to do away with their enemies in order to "protect" local people.

The video also demonstrates how Mexico's criminal groups have begun to utilize public relations techniques, claiming to be motivated by the wish to protect the people. Various gangs have grown accustomed to proclaiming their intentions and justifying their actions with public banners, often called "narcomantas," videos uploaded to the Internet, and even interviews with major media outlets. More often than not, the groups try to take the moral high ground against their enemies, as the CJNG does in its latest video, tarring the Caballeros as kidnappers and thieves.

It’s not always clear what is motivating this tendency for gangs to paint themselves as the good guys and their enemies as the villains. Sometimes, it’s clearly in a group’s interest to distance themselves from a particularly heinous crime or assuage fears that they might seek to overthrow the government, to try deflect the attention of the authorities. But most citizens, to say nothing of the government, will put little stock in any group’s proclamations that they are the noblest of the gangsters.

The video is also interesting for what it says about the Caballeros. The fact that the CJNG targeted them rather than the Familia indicates that the Caballeros have consolidated themselves as Michoacan’s foremost gang, definitively displacing the older organization. It seems unlikely, however, that they have such a firm hold over Guerrero. Acapulco in particular has been contested by a bevy of different groups in recent years, from the Zetas to the Sinaloa Cartel, the South Pacific Cartel, and the Barredora. The Caballeros, and now the CJNG, are just one group among many trying to win control.

Finally, the speaker alleges that Nazario Moreno, who was reported killed in December 2010 in a shootout with government forces, is still alive and remains at the head of the Caballeros. The same claim was made by a captured Mexico City gang boss last year, and previously in posters signed by the Familia. Given that his death was a major success for the government and precipitated the collapse of the Familia, this allegation would be a bombshell if it proved true.

Such conspiracy theories are common in Mexico. One popular tall tale is that Amado Carrillo, the Juarez Cartel founder who died in plastic surgery in 1997, faked his own death and remains at large. Anabel Hernandez, in her muckraking 2011 book "Los Señores del Narco," claimed that the deceased Sinaloa boss Ignacio Coronel was also still alive. There's not much evidence to support any of these allegations, and there’s little reason to believe any of them are accurate.

However, it is also true that while the Hernandez had a clear interest in winning publicity with scandalous stories -- a tactic that has landed her in legal trouble with former Attorney General Jorge Carpizo, who was attacked in the book -- it’s not obvious what the CJNG would have to gain by falsely claiming that Moreno was still alive.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony for a new army garrison in Michoacan, the Mexican president revealed that a total of 8,000 troops are currently deployed in the state as part of an effort to crack down on crime.

On March 20, the Mexican government opened a military base in the southern Michoacan municipality of Tiquicheo. President Felipe Calderon spoke at the ceremony, and announced that the 600 troops posted at the garrison brings the total number of soldiers in the state to 8,000.

According to the president, these deployments were made in order to address the “irrational, absurd and inhumane” level of violence in the southwestern state. Calderon also indirectly addressed recent reports of abuses committed by security forces, calling on the troops to respect human rights in their efforts to protect the population.

InSight Crime Analysis

Michoacan, Calderon’s home state, was the first to see a military deployment after he took office in 2006. The president initiated another major troop surge in February to quell violent clashes between the remnants of the once-mighty Familia Michoacana and their rival splinter group the Caballeros Templarios.

With 8,000 soldiers, Michoacan is now the state with the second-largest troop presence after Tamaulipas (where 15,400 are stationed). However, it remains to be seen whether this deployment will bring security to Michoacan, which saw a rash of drug violence last year that displaced thousands of residents.

Although Mexican authorities tout the recent drop in homicides in Veracruz as proof that military presence can bring down violence, some believe otherwise. Calderon’s critics claim that deploying soldiers only aggravates violence, and can pose a threat to civilians. A January 2011 analysis of homicide data from 2006 to 2009 by sociologist and crime analyst Fernando Escalante supports this claim, indicating that troop deployments to “drug war” hotspots actually resulted in increased violence in those areas.

Easter was the least violent week that Ciudad Juarez has seen in four years, even as some Central American countries, including Guatemala, continued to see high murder rates during what is typically one of the most peaceful holidays in Latin America.

As reported by El Diario, the first eight days of April saw the lowest number of criminal acts registered in Ciudad Juarez since drug-related violence began to escalate in 2008. According to the Attorney General's office, 13 people were killed between April 1 and 8, representing an average of 1.6 homicides daily. This is the lowest homicide rate reported since January 2008, when an average of 1.4 people were killed daily.

Other reports indicate there was relative calm in coastal states like Veracruz and Guerreo, popular tourist destinations which saw dramatic increases in homicides last year. Resort city Acapulco, which reportedly saw 2011's largest increase in violence at the municipal level, saw hotels reach 80 percent occupancy, the Guerrero government told AFP.

Other countries in Central America also reported seeing the expected decreases in crime-related homicides during Holy Week, although there was still a significant number of killings reported.

The decrease was more neglible in Guatemala, where, according to President Otto Perez, Holy Week saw 85 crime-related deaths, compared to 97 registered in 2011.

Police in Honduras did not release statistics on the number of homicides registered during Holy Week, although Proceso reports that the morgue in San Pedro Sula, one of the world's most violent cities, received "over 40 bodies" during one three-day period.

The National Police of Nicaragua reported 33 deaths during holy week, 21 of which were criminal acts.

InSight Crime Analysis

Crime rates usually drop during Holy Week, but the record low in homicides in Ciudad Juarez -- arguably the city most identified with drug-related violence -- points to some significant security advances. According to El Diario, the average number of daily homicides has been dropping in Juarez since August 2011, with 4.8 daily murders in September, 3.4 in November, and 2.8 in February. Even as Juarez remains the most violent city in Mexico, Holy Week provided another window into the city's undeniable security gains.

But the relatively high death tolls in Central America are another remind of how crime-related violence is becoming more widely dispersed across the region. The exception seems to be El Salvador, where the most powerful criminal gangs have accepted a truce reportedly brokered by the Church.

Eight taxi drivers have been shot dead on the outskirts of the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.

The men were killed in separate attacks on two taxi ranks in the same area of the suburb of Guadalupe.

Police sources said the drivers were operating without permits. At least two bystanders were wounded in the shootings, including a young girl.

The industrial city of Monterrey has in recent years been hit by a wave of drug-related violence.

Monterrey has become a battleground for the rival Zetas and Gulf drugs cartels, who are fighting for control of smuggling routes into the US.

Correspondents say Mexican taxi drivers have been targeted for refusing to pay extortion payments or because they were suspected of working for rival gangs.

A security spokesman for the state of Nuevo Leon, Jorge Domene Zambrano, told the AP news agency that police are investigating a former driver who threatened co-workers after being sacked for allegedly selling drugs.

Last year, 52 people died in an arson attack on a Monterrey casino that was reportedly the work of the Zetas.

Mexico’s drug trafficking gangs are increasingly using newspaper ads to recruit couriers unaware of their cargo, a tactic that is both inexpensive for criminal groups and difficult for authorities to counter.

As the Associated Press reports, drug traffickers have been advertising jobs for security guards, housecleaners, and cashiers in the classified ads of Mexican papers, mentioning that applicants will need to drive company cars to the United States and therefore must be able to legally cross the border.

Border officials say they have reason to believe the trend is on the rise, primarily in the San Diego area. Since February 2011, 39 people who claimed to have fallen for the misleading ads have been arrested at the city's two border checkpoints. In total, police have seized 3,400 pounds of marijuana, 75 pounds of cocaine, and 100 pounds of methamphetamine from individuals tied to the scam.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched a counterstrike against the technique this week, purchasing ads (pictured) in Tijuana newspapers to alert job-seekers to the trap. However, Victor Clark of Tijuana's Binational Center for Human Rights tells the AP that the measure may not work, as the ICE ads offer no instruction on how to identify legitimate companies.

InSight Crime Analysis

For the same reasons that it is effective, recruitment through newspaper advertisements will be difficult for authorities to crack down on: the mule ads are difficult to differentiate from true job ads, and offer an income generating activity that is seemingly legitimate.

As InSight Crime reported, the lack of employment opportunities in Mexico has only enhanced criminal organizations’ role as job suppliers. The classified advertisement technique means that criminal groups can now target even those who are looking for honest jobs.

According to the Associated Press, the hired drivers often make between $50 and $200 per trip, incurring little cost to drug traffickers who pay experienced couriers anywhere between $1,500 and $5,000 each trip. The fact that many of the recruited employees are unaware that they are transporting drugs offers another advantage for criminal groups, because the couriers appear less worried as they pass through border inspection.

Female Skeletons Found Near US-Mexico Border Are Reminder of Juarez Femicides Written by Edward Fox, InSight.com, Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The skeletal remains of 12 people found earlier this year close to Mexico's Ciudad Juarez have been identified as female, bringing attention once more to the city's high rate of murders against women.

Mexican authorities announced Monday that six of the 12 victims discovered in January and February in Juarez Valley have been identified as girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years. The girls had been missing since 2009 and 2010, reports the LA Times. The other six have also been identified as female, though their ages are unknown.

The cause of death remains unclear, as little more than the bones have been found.

Activist leader Victoria Caraveo of the NGO Women of Juarez (Mujeres de Juarez) told the Associated Press that the discovery suggests the work of a "well-organized gang ... with some people kidnapping them, others mistreating, using or raping them, and others dumping the bodies."

InSight Crime Analysis

Ciudad Juarez has been afflicted by a high rate of "femicides" (gender-based killings of women) over the past two decades. More than 500 cases have been documented since 1993, though the actual number may be far higher. These authorities have generally failed to bring about any prosecutions, and activists protesting the lack of action by Mexico's government have become targets, as evidenced by the rape and murder of campaigner Susana Chavez in January 2011. In November last year, the government was forced into making an apology for the state's failure to prevent the killings, and the continued impunity.

The motives behind the murders of women are often unclear, though they are thought to be driven in part by the macho culture linked to the drug trade, and the resulting violence that has engulfed Ciudad Juarez in recent years.

What's more, Mexico's criminal gangs have increasingly moved into human trafficking, increasing the levels of violence against women. According to Mexican congresswoman Rosi Orozco, there are some 800,000 cases of sex trafficking in the country each year. Ciudad Juarez's location as a border town and key transit point for people and goods moving north to the US increases the potential for violence associated with these trades.

Based on a recent report by the Small Arms Survey entitled " Femicide: A Global Problem," while Mexico overall has a low rate of femicide compared to others in Central America, with 2.5 cases per 100,000 people between 2004 and 2009, the rate in Ciudad Juarez stood at 19.1 per 100,000 in 2009.

A Mexican businessman who accused 10 federal police officers of extortion and kidnapping has been murdered in Ciudad Juarez, and while authorities say they suspect the motive was robbery, it seems possible that it was a revenge attack.

Eligio Ibarra was found stabbed to death in his residence near El Paso, Texas, on the US-Mexico border. His body was 70 percent covered in burns, making him difficult to identify.

One suspect has been arrested in connection with the murder.

Ibarra filed a complaint in September 2011 against 10 federal police officers, who he said demanded $5,000, threatening to plant drugs on him if he did not comply. He accused the officers of kidnapping, beating, and robbing him. At the time of their arrest, the officers had marijuana, heroin, and illegal weapons in their possession.

When Ibarra filed his complaint, he told online publication Norte Digital that he had received threats and feared for his life, as the El Paso Times reports. Based on his complaints, the agents were arrested and indicted on a variety of charges, including extortion, abuse of authority, kidnapping, and carrying illegal weapons. They were found guilty by a federal judge and currently await sentencing.

When his case became public, Ibarra fled Juarez, a state human rights official told El Paso Times. He had returned to participate in court proceedings against the officers.

InSight Crime Analysis

Despite the fact that Ibarra received threats, state and federal authorities suspect the killing was motivated by robbery, and that Ibarra knew his killer, due to evidence collected at his scene and the fact that only his family and friends knew when he was staying in his Juarez residence. One of Ibarra's cars was stolen, and the lock to his garage had been tampered with, suggesting the suspect or suspects had attempted to steal his other car.

Authorities have painted a picture of an unlikely-sounding robbery-homicide, in which somebody close to Ibarra stabbed him in the heart, burnt his body almost beyond recognition, all while navigating the closed-circuit cameras protecting his residence, in order to rob him.

If, on the other hand, Ibarra was killed in a revenge attack, perhaps even by colleagues of the officers he helped put behind bars, this would point to a deep level of corruption in the federal police. This would be a bad sign for security in Mexico, since the federal force is generally seen as a more reliable and less corrupt alternative to state and municipal police. The fact that Ibarra had no official protection despite his high-profile complaint against the police is telling of the dangers faced by those who report corruption in the security forces.

Retired Mexican General Mario Acosta Chaparro, accused of ties to the Juarez Cartel, was murdered in Mexico City, raising suspicions over his relationship with the criminal underworld.

Acosta (pictured) was shot three times at a garage in Mexico City on April 20. According to eyewitnesses, the ex-general was murdered by a lone gunman who then fled the scene on a motorcycle, reports the LA TImes.

Acosta was arrested in 2000, and sentenced to 16 years in prison two years later for aiding and protecting former Juarez Cartel leader Amado Carillo Fuentes. However, the conviction was overturned in 2007, when a panel of judges ruled that the prosecutors had failed to successfully prove the links between Acosta and Carillo. After Acosta's release, his rank of general was reinstated shortly before his retirement the following year.

The former general was also accused of involvement in the disappearances and killings of Mexican left-wing activists during the 1970s and 1980s, when the government of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) waged a so-called "dirty war" against suspected rebels. These charges were similarly dismissed.

A motive for the killing has yet to be established according to Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Rodriguez Almeida.

InSight Crime Analysis

Acosta was briefly brought out of retirement by President Felipe Calderon to act as government representative in negotiations with some of Mexico's biggest drug gangs, according to Proceso. Between 2008 and 2009, Acosta is alleged to have met with the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Beltran Leyva Organization and the Zetas, among others, in an attempt to get them to reduce the levels of violence. These talks ultimately failed, the magazine said.

Calderon's choice of Acosta as a representative points to the former general's murky dealings with the Mexican underworld and his stature within it. Acosta had previously survived an assassination attempt in 2010, which suggests that there was certainly a strong vendetta (or perhaps several vendettas) against him.

Acosta's alleged ties to the Juarez Cartel, while serious, is only one of the most noteworthy cases involving collusion between the military and organized crime. Troops in Juarez may have at one point collaborated with former Zetas members, according to a 2009 US State Department cable released by WikiLeaks. There are also fears that many military deserters have found new employment in the ranks of criminal groups. The whereabouts of over 40 percent of the 56,000 who have deserted the military during the Calderon administration is unknown, prompting fears they may have changed sides in the hope of receiving better pay from drug gangs.

Mexico Set to Compensate Victims of Drug Violence Written by Hannah Stone, InSight.comThursday, April 26, 2012

Mexico's Senate has approved a law to compensate victims of organized crime, one of the major demands of the peace movement led by poet Javier Sicilia.

The law obliges the state to help and protect victims of violence and human rights abuses connected to organized crime, reports El Universal. Under the law, the state will provide compensation of up to 934,000 pesos ($70,000) to victims.

The legislation would create a National System for Attention to Victims, which will provide support to those hurt by crime and oversee compensation payments. The body would include representatives of victims' groups and of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights.

Poet and activist Javier Sicila was a major force campaigning to get the law passed. He became deeply involved with the peace movement after his son was killed, along with six friends, by a drug gang in 2011 (image, above, shows members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity cheering after the Senate's decision.)

The law must be approved by the House of Representatives before it can take effect. This looks likely to happen -- leading congresspeople have committed to passing the bill by Monday at the latest.

InSight Crime Analysis

It is not clear how the Mexican state will judge who qualifies as a victim, as so many crimes are never brought to trial. It could also prove extremely costly to provide compensation to all the Mexicans who have been victims of organized crime, with at least 50,000 people estimated to have died in organized crime-releated killings since 2006.

There are high hopes for the law, with Senators Fernando Baeza and Tomas Torres saying that it "lays the foundations to reconstruct the social fabric which has been so gravely affected by violence." However, the drug violence in Mexico has not ended, though there are signs that the violence has peaked -- it may be impossible to begin the healing process while violence continues.

The law invites comparison to Colombia's Victims Law, passed last year, which sets out reparations for people hurt by the five-decade civil conflict. A key difference between the two is that Colombia's law is aimed at victims of the state, paramilitary groups, and guerrillas, all of whom are combatants in the conflict. In Mexico, on the other hand, there is not a civil conflict between insurgent groups.

Mexican authorities say that, since 2008, criminal gangs have robbed so many trucks carrying gold shipments that some mining companies have been forced to switch to aerial transportation. This highlights the convenience of gold as a means to launder dirty cash.

Drug cartels primarily use the gold to launder their proceeds, usually reworking it into jewelery and selling it on the legal market, reports Excelsior.

Theft of gold bar shipments has been reported in some of the states most affected by drug violence, including Chihuahua, Sonora, and Durango. One miners' association in Sonora told the newspaper that their production costs have increased 15 percent due to security issues, and because they are forced to move their product mostly by plane.

The report does not provide a total for the number of such robberies registered in the past four years, but says the gold stolen during that period is worth some $3 million. The Attorney General's Office reportedly has seven open investigations into gold robberies, all of which involve drug trafficking groups. Some organizations even have the technology to melt down the stolen gold and recast it into bars with a higher level of purity, the report reveals.

InSight Crime Analysis

Gold has various advantages that are appealing to money launderers, including its easy convertibility, and the fact that it can be transferred with relative anonymity on the world market.

Both Colombia's Cali and Medellin Cartels favored gold as a way to launder the proceeds of drug trafficking. It is typically used a means to transfer money from drug sales in the US back to the cartel's country of origin. There are a couple of ways such laundering schemes could work. One is buying gold with dirty cash, and reworking the metal so that it is disguised as a common household or fashion item, then exporting this back to the drug cartel's home country, refining it, and selling it for cash. Another method involves exchanging cash for gold, and using the gold itself to represent the proceeds gained from drug trafficking.

A popular method used by the Medellin Cartel involved importing bars of gold mixed with lead, which were reported as fine gold. By overcharging for the low-purity gold and fudging the invoices, the cartel was able to disguise its profits.

It is likely that the Mexican cartels are also employing a wide variety of ways to use gold to launder proceeds from organized crime. The fact that the Mexican groups have elected to steal the gold outright, rather than purchasing it from legitimate jewelry sellers as the Colombian cartels used to, is one sign of the boldness of the Mexican criminal syndicates. It could also be that stealing gold shipments is viewed as easier and more convenient than going through the hassle of building a relationship with a supplier, which could explain why some Mexican groups have elected to use theft as their primary means of obtaining gold.

Judge: 'Mexico Will Win Fight Against Organized Crime in Juarez" Written by Edward Fox, InSight, Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Spanish judge best known for issuing an arrest warrant against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has said that Mexico is winning the war against organized crime in Ciudad Juarez. But the statement is best described as rhetoric, rather than an accurate description of Juarez's more complex reality.

Speaking at a press conference following a security forum held in Ciudad Juarez, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón stated that progress is being made in the battle against organized crime in Juarez, Chihuahua, and that "without a doubt ... [the authorities] will win the game against organized crime," reports El Heraldo de Chihuahua.

Garzon added, "It is positive ... that something is being done, that there are rules being enforced where they hadn't been previously, that there is political will where there wasn't previously ... in short, that there is positive will."

Ciudad Juarez had a total of 300 murders in 2007 before the figure shot up to over 3,000 in 2010, making it the most violent city in the world. This number fell by 45 percent in 2011, according to President Felipe Calderon, and the murder rate reportedly continues to fall during 2012.

Much of the violence has been blamed on the battle between the Sinaloa Cartel's Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Juarez Cartel for control of this crucial trafficking corridor to the US.

InSight Crime Analysis

Despite the fact that Juarez remains Mexico's most violent city -- its 2011 homicide rate of 148 per 100,000 beating Acapulco's 128 per 100,000 -- its dramatic drop in homicides has enabled the Calderon administration to hold it up as a relative success story.

However, this fall has come with a cost. A report by Proceso magazine earlier this year highlighted how Julian Leyzaola, the controversial municipal police chief in charge of anti-crime efforts, has been responsible for leading and even personally carrying out extrajudicial killings and prison house beatings. The police force have also been accused of arbitrarily detaining people on minor offences, fining them in order to improve the department's finances. This would all appear to run counter to what Garzon talked about in his speech, stating that security gains made by the authorities must be within legal limits.

Furthermore, Garzon's positive assertion that the war against organized crime will ultimately be won is highly optimistic, at least in the short term. While the city has effectively come under the control of the Sinaloans, Juarez remains crucial territory to drug gangs and could therefore continue to see battles, even if they are on a diminished scale. Though the rise of new gangs like the New Juarez Cartel (NCJ) has yet to materialize into a new battle for Juarez, the threat certainly remains.

Police in the northern city of Monterrey have arrested a woman who allegedly worked as an assassin for a local Zetas outfit, and is suspected of killing at least 20 people for the criminal organization.

On May 7, state police officials in Nuevo Leon announced that they had broken up a cell of the Zetas drug cartel. At its head was Maria Jimenez, “alias La Tosca,” a 26 year-old woman who reportedly confessed to the murder of 20 individuals, including that of a local police detective.

La Cronica de Hoy reports that authorities arrested three men who allegedly formed part of Jimenez’s hit squad, as well as three women accused of selling drugs for the gang. According to Milenio, all seven individuals were arrested on May 1, after police noticed a grey van without license plates matching the description of a stolen vehicle.

InSight Crime Analysis

Much of the English-language press about the arrest has focused on Maria Jimenez’s gender and the fact that few other female cartel operatives have been suspected of so many murders. However, this may be a reflection of the media’s tendency to overlook the complex roles that women play as participants in Mexico’s “drug war.” A number of female assassins have been apprehended in Mexico in recent years, and a female plaza chief for the Zetas was arrested outside Monterrey in August.

Indeed, when officials broke up a Zetas training camp last June, they were surprised to find that half of the trainees were females. Even if female assassins are not common, these incidents at the very least suggest that gender roles are shifting as the drug conflict heats up.

Forty-nine mutilated bodies have been found wrapped in plastic bags near the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.

The bodies of 43 men and six women were found dumped on a road 110 miles (180 kilometres) from the US border.

The killings appear to be the latest in a string of brutal murders linked to feuding drug cartels.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Mexico since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed the army to combat these gangs.

The discovery, near the town of San Juan at 04:00 local time (09:00 GMT), led the authorities to close a highway from Monterrey to the border city of Reynosa.

The grim find comes just days after police discovered the dismembered, decapitated bodies of 18 people in two abandoned vehicles in western Mexico.

Drug gangs have previously left bodies scattered in public places as warning to rivals.

In September 2011, 35 corpses were found in the city of Veracruz, while 26 were discovered in Guadalajara in November.

The BBC's Will Grant, in Mexico City says there is not yet any indication as to which drug gang might have carried out the latest attack.

He adds that the latest killings suggest that, despite the fact many Mexicans felt the drug violence had been easing this year, the conflict is still claiming many lives, often in the most brutal circumstances.

More than 47,000 people have been killed since Mr Calderon launched his crackdown on the drug cartels six years ago.

Investigators are questioning Mexico's former deputy defence minister and a top army general for suspected links to organised crime, in the highest level scandal to hit the military in the five-year-old drug war.

Mexican soldiers on Tuesday detained retired general Tomás Angeles Dauahare and general Roberto Dawe González and turned them over to the country's organised crime unit, military and government officials said.

Angeles Dauahare was number 2 in the armed forces under President Felipe Calderón and helped lead the government's crackdown on drug cartels after soldiers were deployed to the streets in late 2006. He retired in 2008.

Dawe González, still an active duty general, led an elite army unit in the western state of Colima and local media said he previously held posts in the violent states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

An official at the attorney general's office said they would be held for several days to give testimony and then could be called in front of a judge.

"The generals are answering questions because they are allegedly tied to organised crime," the official said.

Angeles Dauahare said through a lawyer that his detention was unjustified, daily Reforma newspaper reported.

If the generals were convicted of drug trafficking, it would mark the most serious case of military corruption during Calderón's administration.

"Traditionally the armed forces had a side role in the anti-drug fight, eradicating drug crops or stopping drug shipments," said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst who formerly worked in the government intelligence agency.

"After 2006, they were more directly involved in public security, putting them at a higher risk of contact [with drug gangs]," he said.

About 55,000 people have been killed in drug violence over the past five years as rival cartels fight each other and government forces.

Worsening drug-related attacks in major cities are eroding support for Calderón's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, ahead of a 1 July presidential vote.

Over the weekend, police found 49 headless bodies on a highway in northern Mexico, the latest in a recent series of brutal massacres where mutilated corpses have been hung from bridges or shoved in iceboxes.

Opinion polls show Calderón's party is trailing by double digits behind opposition candidate Enrique Peña Nieto from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which says the government's drug strategy is failing.

Traditionally, the military has been seen as less susceptible to cartel bribes and intimidation than badly paid local and state police forces, who are often easily swayed by drug gang pay offs.

But there have been cases of military corruption in the past. Angeles Dauahare himself oversaw the landmark trial of two generals convicted of working with drug gangs in 2002.

Those two generals were convicted of links to the Juárez cartel once headed by the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was known as the Lord of the Skies for flying plane load of cocaine into the United States.

Since then, the Sinaloa cartel - headed by Mexico's most wanted man Joaquín "Shorty" Guzmán - has expanded its power and is locked in a bloody battle over smuggling routes with the Zetas gang, founded by deserters from the Mexican army.

Mexico's army said it had detained a third general for questioning on Thursday, hours after a judge placed the two other officers under a form of house arrest pending an investigation for possible links to the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.

A Defense Department statement did not say specifically whether retired Gen. Ricardo Escorcia was detained in connection with same allegations pending against the other two generals, who were brought in on Tuesday.

But it did note that the detention order for Escorcia's was issued "simultaneously with the two previous detentions, with the aim of having him testify in the investigations" being carried out by civilian prosecutors.

Escorcia retired from active service in 2010 after reaching mandatory retirement age. He previously served as head of the military base in Cuernavaca, a city just south of the Mexican capital that has been considered Beltran Leyva territory.

The leader of the cartel, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines at an apartment complex in Cuernavaca in 2009. The marines were reportedly called in to look for the capo after the army appeared to be slow to act on U.S. intelligence indicating the drug lord's location, according to a leaked U.S. Embassy diplomatic cable from late 2009.

The army said that Escorcia was detained by military personnel and turned over to the Attorney General's Office, which had no immediate comment on whether he is named in the same probe as the other two generals.

The office said in a statement earlier Thursday that the other two army officers, retired Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare and Gen. Roberto Dawe Gonzalez, will remain under arrest at least 40 days while prosecutors strengthen their case.

The investigation against Angeles Dauahare and Dawe Gonzalez is based on a case from 2009 that includes "the testimony of several people on trial, including some soldiers," the office said.

An official at the Attorney General's Office said the generals protected members of the Beltran Leyva group, which has been battling the Sinaloa cartel since 2008, when they ended an alliance. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to discuss the case.

President Felipe Calderon named Angeles Dauahare as assistant defense secretary in 2006. He left the post in 2008, when he retired. He is the highest ranking military official to be linked to drug traffickers under the current administration.

Dawe Gonzalez is currently assigned to a military base in the western state of Colima.

Angeles Dauahare's lawyer, Alejandro Ortega, told The Associated Press Thursday he hasn't been given access to court files or allowed to talk to his client. He said the general told his wife he is being accused of taking money from associates of Edgar Valdez Villareal, who was allegedly top hit man for Beltran Leyva. Valdez Villareal was arrested in 2010.

Ortega said the general supports himself with an army pension and owns a house and an apartment. He said the general's wife also owns a house she inherited.

A few senior military officers have been arrested for alleged links to traffickers during Mexico's long struggle to control the cartels.

Retired Gen. Juan Manuel Barragan Espinosa was detained in February for alleged links to organized crime and Gen. Manuel Moreno Avina and 29 soldiers who were under his command in the border town of Ojinaga, across the border from Presidio, Texas, are being tried on charges of torture, homicide, drug trafficking and other crimes.

In 1997, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was arrested when he was Mexico's drug czar. He was charged with protecting then-cocaine kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

More than 47,000 people have been killed in drug violence since Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers to drug hotspots, according to government figures.

The Mexican military has detained eight alleged members of the Gulf Cartel in connection with the dumping of 49 mutilated corpses in Nuevo Leon, a massacre which the Gulf apparently tried to blame on rival group the Zetas.

Officials from the Mexican Defense Department (Sedena) announced Thursday that the men were captured in the Nuevo Leon municipality of China by a military unit acting on a tip that Gulf Cartel operatives were in the area. The soldiers seized a kilo of white powder (likely cocaine), four rifles, a handgun, ammunition, and three hand grenades, as well as tactical and communications equipment.

The men are suspected of involvement in the recent dump of 49 dismembered bodies along a highway in the northern border state, and sources consulted by Milenio claim that the suspects may be able to lead investigators to where they disposed of the victims’ heads, hands and feet.

State authorities are investigating the authenticity of a YouTube video depicting the unloading of the bodies from a truck, which was accompanied by a warning in the name of the Zetas.

InSight Crime Analysis

The fact that the authorities suspect the Gulf Cartel of committing the massacre supports statements apparently released by Zetas, who Nuevo Leon state officials initially said were behind the violence. In response to these allegations, the group posted a series of banners, or “narcomantas,” in several states denying any part in the incident. They pointed out that a message left with the 49 bodies did not follow the group’s “house style” for referring to their rival. “[W]hen we hang banners we say ‘Las Golfas,’ and they say ‘Golfo,’” the banners stated.

The massacre was likely an attempt by the Gulf Cartel to “heat up the plaza,” a tactic used by drug traffickers, who commit acts of violence in another group’s area of influence in the hopes of sparking a law enforcement crackdown there.